


Bring me back

by EmSwe



Category: Homeland
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Love, Love Confessions, Rehabilitation, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:19:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19438498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmSwe/pseuds/EmSwe
Summary: This is what I would like to see in season 8.Dar Adal figured out that Quinn was in danger and helped him fake his death. Saul has gotten Carrie back from Russia but after 7 months of captivity they can´t get through to her. Will Quinn be able to bring her back?





	1. Chapter 1

He came back to the small cabin by the lake that had been his home for a little more than a year now. It was a beautiful wooden cabin located deep within a forest by a lake. With no other houses for miles and he liked it like that. It had always been his dream to have a cabin by the lake, just him and the nature. He´d just been out for a run and was heading inside to have a shower. He ran daily now, had been doing so for the past two months. He had slowly gotten better from his stroke and the past year he´d really put in a lot of effort to be the best he possible could be, given the circumstances. He didn´t limp anymore and he didn’t slur his speech any longer either. Sometimes when he was very tired he would struggle to find the right words, but that didn´t really matter anymore, he lived by himself and therefore he didn´t talk much to anyone. The only time he did was when he went in to town to get groceries but it was often just a simple “Hi” and “Thanks”. But he didn’t mind, he liked being by himself. 

He had left everything that day little over a year ago, that had been the deal. Dar Adal had figured out that someone was coming for him, using his situation to blame the president elects assassination on the PTSD stricken former CIA agent. So they had been prepared, that day of the attack he´d been wearing a vest, and the blood was fake, he´d controlled his breathing and heartrate so that the first responders wouldn’t be able to find a pulse. Then Dar had taken him in the ambulance to a second location where a car was waiting. Quinn received a map and the address of the cabin, cash that would last him the rest of his life and an untraceable phone that only Dar had the number to in case someone started snooping around asking questions about Quinn’s death and he needed to contact him. 

During the past year it didn´t ring once, he did always made sure to have the phone charged in case of an emergency. It hadn’t really been a though decision to leave it all when Dar approached him and told him about what he had found out. The only person he cared about was Carrie and he knew that as long as he was alive and could be linked to her she was in danger. He also was well aware of the fact that he was holding her back, that she would be better off without him. She had put her life on hold for far too long to take care of him, when she needed to take care of Frannie and eventually find someone that would take care of her. 

He got in to the shower and the warm water washed the sweat of off his body. He´d just turned the shower off when he heard a ringtone that he didn’t recognize. He wrapped a towel around his hips and took out a gun he had hidden in the bathroom. He had at least one gun hidden in each room, you could never be too careful. He cautiously made his way to the bedroom where the ringing came from and saw that there was no one there. The ringing came from his safe, it was the phone he had gotten from Dar. Something must have happened, he wouldn’t have called otherwise, someone knew about him and was coming for him. 

“Hello?” He answered hesitantly. 

“So it´s true.” The voice on the other end said. It wasn´t Dar but he recognized the voice immediately, it was Saul.

“How do you know about me?” 

“Dar told me, it´s a long story but he´s in prison. He told me about you, so that I can protect you now when he can´t.” 

Quinn needed a second to take it all in. Dar in prison? Was it because of what he had done for him or was there something going on that he didn´t know about. But he quickly pushed the thought aside, he´d find that out eventually. 

“So, who´s coming for me?” He asked, so that he could prepare himself. 

“No one, no one knows about you.”

“Didn´t Dar explain to you how this works? I´m dead, no one is supposed to contact me and I´m not supposed to have contact with anyone. This number is only to be used in case someone figures it out and I need to disappear again.”

“It´s Carrie.”

Quinn felt his heart sink at the mention of her name, he hadn´t heard it said out loud in so long. He did think about her a lot, daily. He wondered how she was, if she was happy, how everything was going with Frannie, if she´d meet someone new, if she sometimes thought about him.   
“What about Carrie, is she okay?” 

“It´s bad Quinn. I can´t give you details but she has been held hostage for 7 months by Russians. I just got her back. She´s in the psychiatric hospital, we can´t break through to her. We´ve tried everything, it´s like she doesn’t recognize any of us, I´ve tried, Maggie and Frannie to, there´s nothing.”

Quinn felt his heart beating faster than it ever had before. 

“They´ve had her for 7 months?” He seethed with anger.

“Why the FUCK haven´t anyone told me?” He screamed at Saul. 

Saul didn’t say anything, but Quinn heard him taking a deep breath before he continued. 

“I wouldn’t even be calling you if it wasn´t for one of the nurses hearing Carrie mentioning your name when she was sleeping.” Saul paused for a second before he continued. 

“I don´t know what to do here Quinn, if she doesn’t get better they will lock her up in a psychiatric institution, where she´ll probably spend the rest of her life.” Quinn could hear the panic mixed with extreme sadness in Saul´s voice. 

Quinn felt like he couldn´t breath and his heart was breaking for Carrie, and what she had suffered for the past months. He´d just assumed that she was fine, great actually now that she didn’t have to worry about him any longer. And now he had just found out that she´d suffered worse than ever before. Would all of this have happened if he had stayed with her? Would he have been able to protect her? 

“Quinn?” Saul asked hesitantly.

“Send me the address, I´ll be there in the morning.” 

“Thank you.” Saul said before he hung up. A second later his phone beeped again and a message with the address appeared on the screen. 

Quinn sat on the edge of his bed. How the fuck had Carrie been taken by the Russians, and how had they been able to keep her for 7 months?! He quickly sprung in to action, packed a bag with clothes that would last him a week, before he got himself dressed. He was packed and heading towards his car within 15 minutes. He took a deep breath before he started the car, although he wanted to drive as quickly as the car could possibly go, he knew that he wouldn’t be any use to her if he got in an accident on the way. He also decided not to let his thoughts wander to what state she would be in when he got there, he would know soon enough. He made a promise though that whatever state he would find her in, he would be there for her like she had been there for him. He would not leave her this time. Never.


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn arrived at the hospital early the next morning after an almost 10 hour drive. He had tried not to let his mind wander to what she´d been through, if he could have stopped it, if she was lost forever. Quinn noticed Saul in a chair in the waiting room, sleeping. He walked over to him and dropped his back on the floor, causing Saul to jerk awake. 

Quinn sat down in the empty chair beside him. 

“So, what can I expect?” He asked cutting straight to the point. 

“She hasn´t said a word to anyone since we got her back, she in her own world most of the time, curled up against the wall in her bed. If she turns to look at you it´s as if she´s looking right past you, like she has no idea of who you are, like she can´t even see you. The night nurse heard her whisper your name once when she was keeping an eye on her. That’s the only thing she´s said.” 

“Can I see her?” He asked and Saul nodded and got up from his chair and showed Quinn to Carrie´s room. Quinn looked in through the window in the door and felt his heart breaking just from the sight of her. 

There she was, the only person he´d ever cared about, the only person he´d ever loved. The one he left to protect, thinking he was doing the right thing. Now it was obvious that he hadn´t. She was curled up on the bed in a foetal position, she looked so small he thought. Her blond hair was sprawled out in the pillow, and she looked much skinnier than when he last saw her. He opened the door and entered slowly, he got the chair from across the room and moved it over to the bed. She didn’t move an inch as he sat down in the chair beside her. 

“Carrie?” He whispered.

¨¨¨¨¨

She heard someone enter the room, but she didn´t move. She didn´t have the energy to care, she knew that whatever it was, it was just another mind game, away to try to make her talk. So she just stayed in her curled up position on the bed staring at the wall. She sometimes had a moment or two of clear-headedness but most of the time she was stuck in her own world. A world she created to make it through the day. A world where nothing bad ever happened, where she was happy. Maggie and Frannie wasn´t there, because even the thought of them made her so sad, and then she would start to think about what she was missing, the fact that Frannie wasn´t with her anymore, that she had lost her. She would wonder what they thought now that she hadn´t returned home like she´d said. Did they care? 

So she had erased them from her mind, it was better that way. Someone she hadn´t erased from her mind was Quinn. In her world that she had created he was with her, he wasn´t dead, he was very much alive and happy, they were happy. In her reality there was no evil, she wasn´t locked up in a room all alone, she was in her family´s cabin with Quinn. They would go for long walks, talk, run and even try to cook together. And Quinn wasn´t the broken man he had been the last time she´d seen him, he was his usual self, smug, arrogant and so impeccable. Why would she ever leave that world, it was perfect. 

But every once in a while she was pulled out of that world, to what she sometimes recognized as reality. And as soon as she was there she did everything in her power to go back to her own world. Because in reality he was dead and she was alone. 

She thought that she was in that horrible place when she heard it. 

“Carrie?”

It was barely a whisper, but it didn´t make since. This wasn´t her happy place, this wasn´t the world that she had created, but it wasn’t reality either. Because she recognized that voice, it was his voice. The voice that had kept her company during her lonely days and nights. But he was dead, she´d seen him die, she´d been to his memorial. So this must be another dimension that her mind had created. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder and her name being whispered again. What was this dimension? His touch seamed so real, but she knew it wasn´t. She had to look though, was this Quinn as perfect as the one in her happy place? She turned her head slightly and looked at the person sitting on the chair next to her bed. He was just as perfect as in her own reality, his hair was perfectly messy, he was wearing a dark grey button down with the top two buttons undone, and those beautiful blue eyes. But something was wrong, in this dimension he didn´t seem as happy as he is in her own reality, his eyes showed a worried look, sadness. She didn’t like this version of Quinn, so she looked away and turned back towards the wall, closed her eyes and went back to her own reality.

Quinn was waiting for her on the patio when she returned. A glass of wine in hand and a smile on his lips.

“Welcome back.” He said as he kissed her lips. 

“I´ve missed you.” She whispered. 

¨¨¨¨¨

He reached out carefully and touched her shoulder. 

“Carrie.” He whispered again. He felt her stir and slowly she turned her head and looked at him. Not through him but actually at him. He heard how Saul inhaled deeply at her reaction to him. He looked into her eyes, he couldn’t see any emotions in them, they were just dead. He caressed her shoulder slowly and then she turned back towards the wall. 

“I´ve missed you.” He heard her whisper. 

¨¨¨¨¨

A week quickly past, but Quinn had no intention of going back to his cabin. He was with her 24/7 the only exception being when he needed to use the bathroom. The staff had even gotten him a more comfortable armchair to sit and sleep in after the first two nights sleeping upright in a chair. He spent the days just talking to her, about their past, things they´d done, but just the good stuff. He read to her daily, always lighthearted books once even a cook book. She hadn’t said anything else since that first time he saw her a week ago, but that was also the only thing she´d said to anyone. Not counting what she said when she was sleeping and dreaming. 

Then she said a lot of things, she often said his name, sometimes she laughs. Sometimes her dreams were much darker and she would scream and cry. Then he would talk to her calmly and softly caress her shoulder or back. 

Saul had been hopeful after the first interaction but his desperation grew as the days past and no progress was made. With each day that passed the closer she came to being locked away in a psychiatric institution. 

“What helped you?” Saul asked one day.

“When?” 

“In the hospital in Germany, what made you feel connected to this world, what made you wake up?” 

Quinn thought about it for a while. 

“She did.” He answered softly not taking his eyes away from her curled up from on the bed. 

“I remember that she would hold my hands, massage them. I remember her touching my face, feeling her close. Her touches pulled me back.” 

“So try that.” Saul pleaded. 

“I am.” Quinn answered clearly upset. 

Saul nodded and headed towards the door. 

“I´ll see you in the morning.” Quinn just nodded in response. 

¨¨¨¨¨

He could see that she was awake, during the past days he´d figured out how to tell if she was awake or sleeping by the way she was breathing. She was still curled up on the bed pressed close to the wall. 

Fuck it he thought and got up from his chair and sat down on the side of the bed. No reaction. He kicked of his shoes and laid down next to her on his side. Still no reaction. He moved closer to her and wrapped his arm around her. He felt her stiffen, her breathing accelerating and then slowly she became less tense and her breathing slowed.

¨¨¨¨¨

She was in her happy place when she felt a weight sitting down behind her, pulling her back from her reality. She didn’t move, didn’t dare to. She felt someone laying down behind her, she didn’t react. She just stayed still. She felt an arm reach across her body, pulling her closer. She stiffened fearing the pain that would usually follow any type of contact, the only time another human made contact with her was when they were beating her up. Her breaths increased as she waited for the pain. But it didn’t come. 

“You´re okay.” She heard him whisper. Quinn. She began to relax, this was new, Quinn was obviously real in her world, but she never felt him, she didn’t feel his touches as clearly as she did right now. 

“I need you to come back to me. I´m right here, waiting for you.” He said echoing what she had told him once. 

Her mind tried to make since of it, her Quinn, the happy one in her reality, he wouldn’t know that. That Quinn hadn´t been shot in Germany, he hadn´t gotten involved with terrorists and he most definitely hadn´t been gassed and been in the hospital for months. So how did this Quinn know about those words? Unless…..no of course he wasn´t real, the real Quinn was dead. But this Quinn felt very much alive, his body felt warm against hers, his breath hot on her neck, his arm tightly wrapped around her. She didn´t dare to move, she didn’t want to leave this reality. 

¨¨¨¨¨

Her slowed breathing told him that she was asleep, and that night she didn’t toss and turn while sleeping. She didn’t scream and she didn´t cry, she just slept. He closed his eyes and felt himself start to drift off. 

¨¨¨¨¨

When he woke up, she was still sleeping, or at least he thought so. He started to carefully loosen his arm that was wrapped around her, holding her tight. Then he felt it. Her small hand gripped his wrist holding him in place. She pulled his arm tighter around her and didn´t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are grately appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

A new routine was created after that night. During the days Quinn would read to her and talk to her and during the nights he would crawl in to bed with her and just hold her. The doctors said that it was progress, that she hadn´t allowed anyone to touch her since she got there, and those times when they had to, she´d been fear stricken. But it didn’t feel like progress. She still didn´t talk to him or anyone else, she didn’t look at him and it was as if she didn’t know that he was there. She did sometimes though at night grip his arm that was wrapped around her and pulled him even closer to her. So she had to know he was there right? That he was real? 

Once they first got her back, they had started to introduce her medicine back into her, hoping that would have a positive effect on her. But she had been without it for so long that they couldn´t know for sure if they were able to bring her back fully. So far it hadn´t helped at all, at least not that they knew of.

¨¨¨¨

When she had her moments of clarity, she was more confused than ever. Or she thought that she had a moment of clarity, but then he would be there and she couldn’t but the pieces together. Maybe she didn’t have any moments of lucidity at all any longer, maybe her own reality and the real reality just melted together. Maybe she had finally gone completely mad. But even so, this new reality was a wonderful place to be in. 

She spent less and less time in her world that she had created, the one with herself and Quinn in the cabin. That place was happier then where she was now, she was happier there, but in this reality where she found herself now, he was much more substantial. His voice was clearer and the best part, she could actually feel his touches, and this was where she wanted to be. 

She felt someone slowly and carefully caress her back and arm. She didn´t tense up anymore at the contact because she knew it was him. It was always him, he was always there. She hadn´t dared to turn around and look at him again, she was scared that if she did he would disappear. But she really wanted to. She took a deep breath and started to slowly turn to where she knew he was sitting. The hand that was stroking her back stopped moving, and it´s warmth disappeared from her body. Fuck, she thought, she´d destroyed it, he wouldn’t be there when she turned to look at him. But he was.

¨¨¨¨

He felt her move and retracted his arm from her back. She turned around and instead of looking towards the wall she was now looking at him. He studied her for a second trying to figure out how aware she was, but he quickly gave that up and kneeled down on the floor beside the bed.

“Hey.” He said quietly. She didn´t respond, she just kept looking at him, searching his eyes for something. He reached forward and softly caressed her face. 

“You´re safe now.” His hand stopped at her neck and they held each other gaze. 

“You´re not real.” She whispered. 

“You´re dead.” Tears started to form in her eyes, that was the first time she´d ever admitted his death out loud. A tear fell from her eye and he reached forward and stroked it away with his thump. Before he could respond, she´d closed her eyes and turned back towards the wall. 

He got up from his position and sat back up on the arm chair and continued to slowly stroke and caress her back as she cried silently. It broke his heart to see her like that, but he couldn´t help the small smile that started to form on his lips. 

This was progress, she´d turned to him, she´d look at him, not though him. And she knew who he was, she recognized him, she spoke to him. He finally had something to hold on to, just the tiniest bit of hope that she was going to be alright. 

¨¨¨¨¨

That night he got himself ready for bed like he had been doing for the past couple of days and just as he got back from the bathroom and was just about to crawl into bed with her, he noticed that she once again had turned away from the wall and was looking at him. She didn’t say anything but moved her back closer to the wall making room for him in the bed, still looking at him. He stepped closer to the bed and tried to read her face expression but he couldn´t. 

“I need to hear your heartbeat.” She whispered. 

He nodded and pulled his white t-shirt over his head, leaving him in just his pajama bottoms. She saw the scars on his body, where he´d been shoot in Gettysburg and in Berlin. That was weird she thought, the Quinn in her imagination didn´t have any scars, he had never suffered any of the horrors the real Quinn had. 

He laid down on his back next to her, she lifted her head and placed it on his naked chest while he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. And then she heard it, the beating of his heart, it was strong, although it was beating faster then was normal. It was…real? She fell asleep listening to the steady beating of his heart while he slowly made circles on her back with his hand. 

¨¨¨¨

Maggie looked in through the window in the door. She was heartbroken knowing what her sister had been through, and she despised herself for the hatred she´d felt towards Carrie for the past 7 months. She thought that Carrie had abandoned Frannie, that she truly didn´t care. And she hated her, so much, for all those months. 

Her heart filled with warmth as she took in the sight before her. Carrie had moved from her usual position on the bed, facing the wall and was now sleeping on Quinn´s chest. She was so grateful for that man, she didn´t know their history but she knew it was complicated. She had seen the love they both had for each other at her father´s wake, but then he had left and Carrie moved away. Then there was the video, it had been everywhere, and after that Carrie for once had cared for someone other than herself for a while. But then the attempted assassination happened and his face was once again all over the internet and in every newspaper, and that’s when Carrie´s downward spiral began. But now he was here, trying to help her sister and she couldn´t be more grateful. 

A sad smile formed on her lips as she turned away and walked down the corridor heading back home. 

¨¨¨¨

When Carrie woke up the next morning it was still there, the steady beating of his heart. The pace of the beats were slower than last night, but they were there, he was there. She felt how he made small circles on the small of her back. But she still couldn’t wrap her head around it, he wasn´t real, he couldn´t possibly be. She knew that for sure, but how come it feel so real. 

“Good morning.” He said huskily. 

“Morning.” His hand stilled on her back, her soft voice shocked him, he didn´t expect her to answer. She never did. He tilted his head down to look at her and was even more surprised when he found her big, beautiful eyes looking into his. 

“I don´t understand.” She whispered. 

“You´re dead, I saw you die, you´re not real. This is all just in my head.” Tears began to form in her eyes. 

“It´s not, Carrie. It´s hard to explain, but I´m real. This, this is real.” He tried to reassure her, but she just shook her head as he spoke. 

“None of this is real, it can´t be. I saw you getting shot, you died, therefor none of this is real.” She said silently as a tear rolled down her cheek and she looked away from him.   
He reached out with his free hand and tilted her face back towards his, he wiped the tear from her face with him thumb and leaned his head down towards her. 

“It´s real.” He whispered before his lips touched hers in a soft, questioning kiss. 

The feel of his lips on hers sent a jolt through her body, she felt a warmth starting to spread inside her. That most definitely didn’t happen when he kissed her in her imaginary reality, this kiss was different, better…real? It had to be, she told herself. Too soon he broke the kiss and pulled away from her and studied her eyes. The warmth that started to spread inside her body disappeared when his lips left hers, but she needed to feel it again. It made her feel alive, the most alive she´d felt in months. 

Her hand that had been resting on his bare chest started traveling upwards slowly. She raised herself up on his chest and looked deep into those ice blue eyes that she loved so much. Her hand slowly started to caress his clavicle, shoulder and neck, her touch light like a feather. Quinn laid still in the bed, letting her explore and touch his body, maybe this was what she needed to see that he wasn´t just in her head. 

She leaned in closer to him and once again their lips connected in a soft kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

”I want to take her back to my cabin.” Quinn said to the four other people seated around the round table. 

“I think it will be good for her to get out of this environment, to not be locked up in here. She´s already been locked away for seven months before even coming here, and now she´s spent a month here, inside that small room.”

“I don´t think it´s a good idea…” Saul started.

“Why not?” Quinn interrupted him. 

“I…um…she´ll be too far away from Maggie and Frannie for one, and the hospital and the staff that knows her situation.”

“Seen for our point of view, I don’t see a problem with it.” Carrie´s doctor said. 

“We can´t do more for her then what we´ve already done. How good her recovery will be is now up to her. She´s back on her meds and that of course helps, but her brain is still stuck somewhere else most if the time. To protect herself while she was captured, she has buried everything that is of importance to her, somehow she didn´t bury the memory of you though. And as far as we can see, you Mr. Quinn, is the only one that have had an effect on her, the only one that she remembers.” The head nurse nodded in agreement as the doctor spoke. 

“You can´t possible think that this is a good idea?” Saul asked Maggie. 

“I can´t say that the thought of Carrie being 10 hours away from me and from Frannie is something that I would ever have thought was a good idea.” She stated and Saul let out a deep breath that he had been holding. 

“I do however see the progress that your presence has had on her. She still doesn’t react to me or Frannie, but she does to you. She talks to you, she looks at you and she allows you to be close to her, you bring her comfort and that is what she really needs right now. So I am willing to put my needs and even Frannie´s needs aside if there is even the slightest chance of her getting better.”

“Okay then, it´s settled. Carrie will come back with me to the cabin.” 

“I do have a condition though, I want weekly contact with you and I also want to see her once every fourth weeks.” The doctor said. 

“Same goes for me.” Maggie said. 

“Of course.” Quinn said. 

¨¨¨¨¨

She was alone in her room, it was the first time in a long time. Quinn was always with her except for just e few minutes every now and then when he left to use the bathroom. Somehow she had come to the conclusion that this Quinn was not just in her head but he was actually here. Her brain still couldn’t comprehend how, but to be honest it didn’t really matter. He was here…right? 

He had been the one keeping her company during those seven months in captivity, but this Quinn was different. She could feel him, she could be close to him, she felt the warmth of his body next to hers at night and his kisses sent a jolt of warmth through her entire body. The only time she´d felt like that prior had been on the night of her father´s funeral, by his car, and that was definitely real. It had been one of the best moments in her life.

And now he was the only constant in her life, when she heard him or felt his presence she knew that she was safe, that this was real. She knew that other people came to see her, she knew she should know who they are, and deep down she did. But she had pushed the memories of them away. It was much harder to think about people that were still here, that needed her, depended on her. It was much easier to think about someone that was dead, then she could imagine what could have been, what should have been.   
Having fantasy Quinn with her those months had been her lifeline. 

And now that she was free from that place, he still was her lifeline, but now he was actually here. He had always been there for her, without asking for anything in return. She saw that now, they belonged together, wherever he was, she wanted to be, needed to be. 

¨¨¨¨¨

That night they were in her hospital bed. He just had his pajama bottoms on and she rested her head on his chest listening to his heart beats. His hand was slowly stroking her back as her hand gently traced the scars of his gunshot wounds. 

“I´m going back home tomorrow morning for a few hours, I´ll be back tomorrow night.” He felt how her hands stopped moving as he spoke. He quickly continued before she would start panicking. 

“I´m taking an early flight tomorrow morning. I need to set somethings up, I need to get some groceries and clothes…for you.” He added hesitantly, she looked up at him.   
“What do you mean?” 

“I thought it might be good for you to get out of here, get away from this environment. I have a cabin that is quite isolated, there´s no neighbors for miles, it´s in the forest by a lake. Nobody knows who we are, no one cares about our past. We could just stay there for a period of time, to recover and for you to find your way back. We could maybe go for walks or just sit outside on the porch. Whatever you want. Just the two of us. What do you think?” She rested her head back on his chest and her hand started tracing his scares once again. 

“I´d like that.” She whispered. 

She didn’t notice the smile that found its way to his lips, before he leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. 

¨¨¨¨

He tried to sneak out of the bed without her noticing, but that didn’t work. She had been sleeping on his chest, her hand resting on his abdomen and her leg entangled with his, so of course she woke up when he got out of the bed. 

She watched him as he got dressed and packed up his duffel bag. She felt her own anxiety starting to rise in her chest. Her head kept telling her that he would leave and she would never see him again and that she would wake up in that horrible place all alone and locked up. 

Quinn turned around and saw the look in her eyes. 

“Hey, it´s okay.” He said as he approached the bed and kneeled down beside it. 

“I´ll be back in just a couple of hours.” 

“I´m scared.” She whispered.

“Of what?” He asked as he gently cupped her cheek. 

“I´m scared that you will leave and that I will never see you again, and that all this was just in my head. That I will wake up and be back in that cellar, all alone.” 

“This is real.” He said as he leaned forward and gently touched his lips to hers, and that warmth that only he could create started to spread though out her body.   
As they broke the kiss and he slowly started to pull away from her, he felt how her hands came up to up his face and pulled him back towards her. 

“This is real.” She reassured herself quietly before their lips once again found each other. 

He rested his forehead against hers once they broke apart. 

“Now that I got you back, I´m never leaving you again, you’re stuck with me now Mathison, for life. Whether you like it or not.” He said while giving her his signature grin, and he was rewarded with a genuine smile, the first one he´d seen since he first saw her in the hospital. 

“Is that so?” She asked with her eyebrow raised. He leaned in and kissed her once more before he stood back up. 

“Oh you bet. I´ll be back in a couple of hours. I promise.” And then he was out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

That day was the worst one since she got to the hospital. She didn’t move from her position on the bed, curled up in a fetal position. The nurses weren’t able to get her to take her meds, and she didn’t eat or drink during the entire day. Any type of physical contact sent her into a fright, making her scream out load and then hyper ventilate. She was in a constant panic mode, after she realized that she couldn’t get back to her safe place, to her family’s cabin with Quinn. It had been her safe place, the only thing that kept her going for those 7 months. But now, she couldn’t reach it and the Quinn that she thought was real wasn´t there either. All she could do was cry, and that’s what she did for 7 hours   
straight.

¨¨¨¨¨  
“It´s bad.” The head nurse told Quinn as he entered the hospital.

“What do you mean?” He asked anxiously. 

“She fell apart as soon as you left, she hasn’t moved from the bed, haven’t eaten or drunken. We haven’t been able to get her to take her meds. She has just been curled up on the bed crying all day.” 

Quinn hurried the remaining way towards Carrie´s room. He looked into the room through the window in the door and what he saw made him feel so guilty. Why the fuck had he left her? She had just started making progress and now she looked to be worse than ever. He took a deep breath and entered the room, he slowly put his duffel bag down on the floor and walked up to her bed. He heard her quiet sobbing as he entered the room.

“Carrie?” He said gently and saw how she tensed as he spoked. 

“Carrie it´s me, I´m sorry, I should never have left you.” He slowly approached the bed and kneeled down beside it, he carefully reached out and hesitantly placed his hand on the small of her back. She felt how she tensed ever more from the contact and he noticed how her breathing rapidly increased. 

“Hey, hey, hey, it´s okay. You´re okay.” He said as he quickly got up and crawled into the bed behind her and held her tight. 

He felt how she slowly began to calm down. 

“Quinn?” She whispered doubtfully. 

“Yes, I´m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you.”

He felt her moving in his arms and he loosened his hold on her and she turned towards him. Her eyes were red and puffy from the hours she spent crying as she looked up at him. He gently reached out to her and wiped the tears away with his thumb. 

“I need to hear your heartbeat.” She whispered.

He knew that was her way to make sure he was real, so he released her and sat up in the bed, undid the buttons of his shirt, took it off and laid back down on the bed. She laid down with her ear on his chest and he gently rubbed small circles on her back. They stayed like that for an hour, neither of them moving nor speaking. 

¨¨¨¨¨

The sound of his steady and strong heartbeat made her calm down and told her that this was real, that he was real and that he was back. She slowly started to trace the scares on him abdomen, another reassurance that he was real. 

“Don’t ever leave me again.” She said quietly as she looked up at him.

“I won´t, I´m so sorry.” He said and leaned down and their lips met in a tender kiss. 

¨¨¨¨¨  
When Quinn woke up the next morning Carrie was already awake and had once again started tracing the scars on his abdomen. He leaned his head down and buried his nose in her hair breathing her in. 

“Morning.” He said, but she didn’t answer. 

“You haven’t changed your mind about the cabin have you?” He asked her dreading the answer, but he felt how she shook her head in response.

“No.” she said quietly. 

“Good, cause we could leave today, if you want to.” 

“I do.”

He got up from the bed and went over to his duffel bag that still was on the floor where he left it yesterday. He rummaged through it and pulled out a pair of black yoga pants, a tank top and a hoodie. He also pulled out a set of socks, new underwear and a hair tie. 

“Thank you.” She said as she got up from the bed, took the things he had laid out and disappeared into the bathroom to change. Once she emerged, Quinn couldn’t help but stare. In the past month that he´d been with her in the hospital he´d only seen her in hospital provided clothes. Seeing her in normal clothes was a great change, she seemed better, healthier. The yoga pants clung to her legs and the hoodie was way too big for her, she had rolled up the arms of it and the hemline ended mid-thigh. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail, which made her look much younger, but it also made it extremely obvious how much weight she had lost. 

“Are you sure you want this?” He asked as he stepped forward and came to a stop in front of her. 

“Yes.” She said as she looked up at him. He pulled her in to a tight embrace and he felt how she responded by wrapping her arms around his waist. He stepped back slightly to look at her and her arms found their way from his waist to his neck. She held his gaze as she got up on her tippy toes and pulled him down towards her, their lips once again met but this time the kiss was more lingering than the ones they shared before. 

“Can we leave now?” She asked as they broke apart. 

“Of course.” He said, gripped the duffel bag and headed towards the door. When he reached out for the handle he noticed that she hadn´t followed him but was still standing in the middle of the room just looking at him. He turned back to her. 

“You okay?”

“Yes.” He took her hand in his and she followed him out of the room. 

¨¨¨¨¨

They had come half way when Quinn started to worry that this might not have been such a good idea. He felt as if some of the progress she had made had disappeared when he left for the cabin the day before. He was worried about what he could do to help her to get back to that, and who he would turn to if things got worse. 

But then his brain told him to suck it up. Carrie had been there for him when he didn’t have anyone else, and when he did all in his power to push her as far away as possible. She had stuck it out, hadn´t left when things got hard, and he would do the same for her. He owed her at least that much. 

He glanced over at her, her head was resting against the window and her eyes were closed. He reached over and gently squeezed her thigh, she turned and looked at him and gave him a small smile before placing her hand on top of his. 

The drive back to the cabin took them ten hours and twenty minutes, they only made a quick stop at a drive through and one toilet break. Carrie didn’t say a word during the entire journey, she just leaned against the window looking out of it or sleeping

¨¨¨¨¨

Quinn slowly pulled up to ta cabin, parked the car and shut the engine of. 

“This is it.” He said to Carrie and he could tell that she was taking in the sight before her. 

The cabin was cedar log cabin, just big enough for two people. The porch stretch all the way around, with a portion of it being glass encrusted, the lake was just about 300 feet from the cabin. Quinn got out of the car and took his duffel bag and the bag Maggie had left for Carrie in the hospital, containing some clothes, pictures, personal belongings that she hoped would trigger her memories and the medications. Carrie followed his suit. 

Quinn walked around the car and took Carrie´s hand in his and walked the short distance to the door, which he unlocked and they stepped inside. Quinn switched on the light and let Carrie take in her new temporary home. Carrie let go of his hand and stepped further into the cabin, the hallway was short and directly to the right was a small wardrobe and then the entire cabin opened up to the left. There was a rather spacious living room with a fireplace and an open layout connecting the living room with a small kitchen. If you continued straight forward, through the living room, you came to the master bedroom which also was quite spacious and had a connecting bathroom in it. The cabin was sparingly decorated, but it had everything you would need. 

“What do you think?” Quinn asked as he stepped up behind her. 

“I like it. It´s beautiful.” She said as she turned to face him. 

“Thank you for getting me out of that place.” She said as she looked into his eyes and he gave her a small smile in return. 

“Let´s go to bed, it´s been a long day.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains sex so if you don´t like that or don´t want to read about that, skip this chapter!
> 
> ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Quinn led her by the hand to the bedroom. 

“I bought you some clothes, I didn´t know what you like to wear outside of work so I bought all kinds of stuff. There´s sweatpants, yogapants, leggings and jeans. There´s tank tops, dresses, t-shirts, sweaters and hoddies. Underwear and I umm…I didn’t know what you usually wear to bed so I got you a pajamas and a nightgown.” 

She stepped closer to him and interrupted his nervous rambling by simply placing a kiss on his lips.

“Thank you.” 

“I..umm…put all your things in the dresser over there. I´ll give you a couple of minutes to get ready, I´ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” She nodded and he walked back out to the kitchen. 

She stood still in the middle of the room for a few seconds just taking it all in. She took a deep breath and let the fresh air fill her lungs before she walked over to the dresser and pulled out the draws looking for a pajama. She found it in the second draw she looked in and gripped it. It was a light peach colored satin pajama with shorts and a button down short-sleeved shirt. She took it with her and went in to the bathroom. She felt a warmth spread through her body when she saw that Quinn had already placed a toothbrush there for her. 

She looked up at herself in the mirror, it was the first time she´d seen her reflection in a mirror since she got back. She thought she looked terrible. Her eyes and cheekbones were sunken in and under her eyes were dark circles. She splashed some cold water on her face and found a moisturizer that she applied.

She carefully stepped out of her clothes and put the pajamas on before exciting the bathroom and got back to the bedroom. She saw him pulling back the bedcover and pulling down the blinds when she stepped back into the room. He turned around to face her when he heard the door open behind him. 

“I didn´t know what you like to wear to bed, I hope that’s okay. If you don´t like it I can go in to town tomorrow and get you something else.” 

She slowly walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. 

“It´s perfect, you´re perfect.” She whispered as she looked deep into his eyes as a genuine smile spread across his lips before he bent down and kissed her. 

“Let´s get to bed.” He said as they broke apart and she nodded in agreement. 

Quinn disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes and came back in his pajama bottoms and crawled under the cover next to her. He stretched out his arm to her and she laid down with her head on his bare chest listening to his heartbeat while he slowly caressed her back. 

¨¨¨¨¨  
Quinn was woken up in the middle of the night a couple of hours later by Carrie moving and breathing rapidly as she mumbled. 

“No….please don´t…..please stop….” She begged. 

“Carrie.” Quinn said gently as he started stroking her back again. 

“Carrie, wake up.” He said a little louder and increased the pressure of his hand on her back. 

Carrie awoke with a deep inhale and sat up straight in the bed, breathing heavily. Quinn sat up beside her and gently took her hand.

“Hey, you´re okay, you´re safe.” He told her reassuringly. 

She tried to gain control of her breathing while she took in her surroundings. Quinn was next to her, gently holding her hand, she was in his bed, in his cabin and she was safe. Her breathing slowed and she leaned in to his shoulder. 

“You okay?” He asked and she nodded as an answer. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she surprised him by turning her head and finding his lips in a hungry kiss. She moved from her place next to him and moved to straddle him as her hand came up to cup his face. 

“Carrie.” He said warningly as he pulled away to look at her. 

“Please don’t.” She said as she looked deep into his eyes. 

“I need you to make me feel better, all of you. Please” She begged him as her hands roamed over his chest. When he didn’t say anything she leaned in and gently touched his lips with hers. 

“Please Quinn.” She said quietly and she felt him nodding in return. 

Her lips once again came crashing down on his in a hungry kiss, her arms wrapped around his neck while both of his hands found their way to her ass and pushed her closer to him. She started grinding against him as she felt him getting hard. His mouth released hers and started traveling over her cheek, neck and throat as she leaned her head back to give him better access. 

She closed her eyes and felt the warmth that his touches created spread throughout her body. She needed this, she needed him to prove to her that this was real, that he was real and not the dream. She felt how his hands found the buttons of her shirt and started to undo them before his mouth made its way further south. He gently kissed her breast while his hand slowly massaged her other breast. His mouth found her nipple and he gently sucked, kissed and nibbled it making her moan out loud. Her hand found its way under his pants and she slowly started stroking his already hard dick. 

She felt how his hands traveled over the side of her belly and touched the sides of her breast before landing on her shoulders where he slowly started to push the shirt of off her shoulders. 

“Don´t.” She said as he started to push it down her arms, making him pull back from her and look at her. 

“Want me to stop?” He asked. 

“No. Let´s just keep the shirt on.” She said as she bent forward and kissed him before she got up from her position on his lap and stood in front of the bed. Without breaking eye contact she slowly lowered her pajama shorts and underwear and crawled back onto the bed and pulled him with her as she laid down on the bed. She saw that he looked at her with worry in his eyes but she couldn’t deal with that now, she needed him. She pulled his face down to hers and their lips once again met, Carrie wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Her hand slowly roamed over his back and further down to the hem of his pants and she slowly pushed them down. He let go of her mouth, sat up on the bed and removed his pants, before pinning her between his elbows once again. 

“You sure you want this?” He asked her as she felt him at her entrance.

“Yes.” She breathed while holding his gaze as he slowly entered her. 

She closed her eyes, arched her neck and inhaled deeply at the contact. He bent down and started kissing and nibbling her neck while he slowly started moving in and out of her. He gradually speeded up the pace of his thrusts and felt her hot and heavy breaths on his neck while her arms were wrapped around him and roamed his back. One of her hands made its way to his butt and pushed him further into her, making him speed up his movements even more. 

“I love you.” She breathed barely audible, making him stop his movements and look at her. He searched her eyes before slowly bending down to kiss her. The kiss was soft, tender, loving and he slowly started to move inside of her again. She broke the kiss and breathed heavily against his lips as his hand found its way between them and started circling her clit. He felt how her body started to tense up and knew her orgasm was just about to roll over her. She moaned his name as she came and he followed close behind. He hovered over her as they both were panting heavily. 

He bent down and kissed her lips before he rolled off of her and pulled her into him. Her head found its usual place on his chest and the speeding beating of his heart was a reminder that all this was real. His arm wrapped around her and before she could stop him, his hand had made its way under her shirt and was gently stroking her bare back. She felt how he stiffened and stopped as he felt the raised scares on her back. 

“Can I see?” He asked gently. She hesitated for a few seconds but then she turned on her side with her back towards him. He cautiously raised her shirt and saw the scares on her back, there were about ten of them, probably made with some sort of whip. He carefully traced each of them with his finger before bending forward and kissed them gently. 

“You´re beautiful.” He murmured against her back. 

She felt how a tear fell from her eye from the tender gesture. She rolled back to him and rested her head on his chest and they fell back asleep holding each other.


	7. Chapter 7

That night Quinn couldn´t sleep, he´d always had trouble sleeping but seeing the scars on Carrie´s back made him think and really wonder about what other horrid things she´d been subjected to. All night, every time he closed his eyes that was the only thing he saw, Carrie being hurt in multiple different ways. So he just stayed awake. Every now and then he gently let his hand trace over her back, turned and smelled her hair or kissed the top of her head, making sure that she was there. 

She stirred awake in the early morning hours, just when the first rays of light shone through the blinds. Quinn was wrapped up in his own thoughts, so he didn’t noticed her waking up. 

“Morning.” She said. 

“Morning.” He answered and bent down to kiss her.

“You didn´t sleep did you?” She said as she noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the concerned look on his face. 

“No.” She turned to lie on her stomach on top of his chest, she reached up with her hand to cup his face and to make him look at her. 

“You do know that nothing of what happened to me is your fault, right?” 

How did she do that he thought, know what he was thinking just by looking at him. She always had been able to do that, even now after so long time apart. 

“Of course it is!” He said agitated. 

“How?” 

“What do you mean how? I fucking left you! None of this would have happened if I just-“

“If you just what? If you would have been around you would have been a liability to the guys who planned the assassination, and you would have been killed, sooner or later. There´s nothing you could have done to prevent this from happening.” Quinn took a deep breath and shook his head. 

“Do you blame me for what happened to you in Berlin or DC?” She asked.

“What? No, of course not!” 

"Well I did, I do. I should have done more to find you, I should have found you sooner. I shouldn´t have let Saul wake you up from the coma, I shouldn´t have let you drive out of that garage.” 

“It was all bad decisions on my part, I got in over my head in Berlin, I underestimated those guys.” 

“I did to, in Russia.” Quinn didn’t say anything to that so she laid her head back on his chest. All of the sudden she felt his chest moving and heard him chuckle slightly. She raised her head and looked at him. 

“What?” 

“I was just thinking that this, right now, is the most you´ve spoked since I first saw you in the hospital.” 

She thought about it and smiled at him before kissing him. 

“Guess this was what I needed.”

“Too get out of the hospital?” 

“That too, but I was talking about something else.” She said teasingly. 

“Oh, and what might that be?” He said as he flipped them around, pinning her body beneath his. 

“You.” She said as she looked up at him, before he bent down and kissed her. Her arms instinctively went around his neck and started roaming his back. He broke the kiss and quickly got up off her, pulling her by the hand with him off of the bed. 

“Now, breakfast.”

¨¨¨¨¨

They had breakfast in silence, Carrie didn’t want to have anything but coffee but Quinn made her eat some yoghurt and berries at least. Which was actually quite funny, seeing how he had never been one to be particularly structural when it came to food. They didn´t speak much after the conversation they had in the bedroom during the rest of the day. They went for a long walk around the lake, they had to make a few stops along the way, Carrie didn’t have the stamina to walk the 2 hours it took at once. 

They sat outside on the porch, each with a book in hand and some soft music playing in the background. Quinn made dinner, Carrie was impressed by his cooking skills but he said that he had had a lot of time to practice, living out here with no fast food available and a lot of time to kill. When the night approached he lit a fire in the fireplace and they were both curled up in the couch with their books. Carrie enjoyed reading, she hadn´t had the time to do a lot of reading before Russia but she really enjoyed it. She thought about how this day had been so much alike the days she and Quinn had in her head, in her cabin. 

She looked up from her book and at the man before her. It only took him almost being killed in Berlin, then being killed in D.C. well at least as far as she knew, and her being held in Russia for them to end up here. She wondered what their life would have been like if he hadn´t left for Syria after the funeral, or if she had given him her answer right away. 

“What?” He asked without looking up from his book.

“I was just thinking.” 

“About?” 

“Do you want to know where my mind went to during those months in Russia?” 

Quinn put his book down and looked up, and their eyes locked. 

“It went to you. I made up my own reality with just you and me, in my family´s cabin. I imagined what our life would have been like if things were different, if I had made different choices, if you weren’t dead. I was happy there, we were happy there. We would talk, laugh, do things normal couples does. But I couldn’t feel your presence, I mean of course I couldn’t you weren’t there. But then one day you were, I couldn’t wrap my head around it, I still at times can´t believe that you´re actually here, and not…dead. I don’t think I would have survived Russia if I didn’t have that reality to hold on to.“ She said and smiled sadly. 

He´d reached out towards her and had slowly begun to gently caress her leg as she spoke. 

“Why did you build your world around me and not…” He paused for a second before continuing. “Your family?” 

“It was easier, you were dead, the only reality with you in it was the one I created, so I could create what I wanted. It was harder to think about other….people…cause they were still around, I couldn’t make up a happy reality with them in it cause I knew that in real life it was nothing like that. And it hurt, it hurt to think about them still being there somewhere, and that I couldn’t get to them. To tell them that I didn´t leave them, that I…love them. So I shut them out of my head, didn´t want to think about them, still don’t, it hurts too much.”

She got up from her place on the couch and sat back down on her knees next to him, she took his hand in hers, rested them on her lap and looked him deep in the eyes. 

“But with you” She continued. “I was already hurting, my heart was already broken, nothing that I made up, created or imagined would cause more pain then the pain that I was already feeling. So I build my new world around you, around us.” 

He searched her eyes before reaching up with his free hand and gently caressed her cheek. He knew that this was the moment he´d been waiting for, the right moment to tell her how he felt. To let the words out that he´d been holding in for so many years. 

“I love you, always have, always will.” He whispered softly before leaning forward and gently touched his lips to hers.


	8. Chapter 8

Quinn slowly moved his feet over the edge of the couch and gently pulled Carrie with him up to a standing position. His hands slowly found their way under her shirt and started roaming over her back. She stiffened slightly at first but then relaxed into his touch. She wrapped her arms around his neck and had to stand on her toes to reach up. 

His hands moved from her back, over her butt and gripped her inner thighs as he picked her up and she immediately wrapped her legs around him. She deepened the kiss as he started walking towards the bedroom, where he gently laid her down on the bed. 

“Take off your clothes.” She commanded, and watched him with intensity as he stood at the end of the bed and started to unbutton his shirt. Carrie´s eyes followed his movements as his hands moved further down his shirt before he removed it completely. 

Carrie´s eyes roamed his toned torso before landing on his eyes holding his gaze as he started undoing the button of his pants before pulling down the fly and stepping out of the pants. 

"All of it.” She said still holding his gaze.

He slowly lowered his boxers and stepped out of them, leaving his completely naked and exposed to her. 

She sat up on her knees on the bed and slowly let her hands travel over her chest, down her stomach before she gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Their eyes were still locked as she reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra and let it fall from her body. She slowly moved towards the foot of the bed and Quinn instinctively took a step back to allow her room to stand. 

She stood in front of him as she slowly undid her pants and pulled them down together with her panties leaving her standing naked before him. She reached up and slowly let her hand trace over his cheek, jaw and throat before traveling further down to the scares that covered his chest and abdomen. She bent forward and placed gentle kisses on them. 

Quinn looked down on the beautiful sight before him, he had never been this exposed, this vulnerable to anyone ever before, but he would give his all to her in a heartbeat. She got down on her knees before him and placed a kiss on his hipbone and his body tensed in anticipation of what’s to come. 

Her hand closed around his hard dick before she took him in her mouth and slowly started sucking and licking him. His head fell back as a moan escaped his lips. She looked up at the sight before her and a smile spread across her lips, Quinn, always in control finally letting it all go, for her.

“Fuck, Carrie.” He groaned as he felt his orgasm starting to build. 

He gripped Carrie by her shoulders and pulled her off of her knees, not wanting this to simply be about him. He gently backed her up against the edge of the bed, but just as he was about to push her down onto it, she put her hand on his chest and stopped him. Without saying a word she stepped round him and pushed him down onto the bed before crawling on top of him, straddling him. 

She steadied herself with her hands on his chest as she slowly lowered herself onto him without letting go of his gaze. She inhaled loudly as she slid all the way down on to him, and slowly started to move up and down his shaft. 

She leaned down and their lips meet in a passionate and hungry kiss, her hands moved from his chest to his hair as his hands roamed her back before landing on her butt cheeks. She stilled and he took a firm grip on her and raised his hips and moved in and out of her, slowly at first before he speeded up the pace. Her breathing caught against his mouth as the new position caused him to go deeper and faster into her. 

“Fuck.” She moaned against his lips causing a smile to spread on his mouth. 

He increased the speed even more and with every thrust a small shriek escaped her lips.

“I´m coming.” She warned, panting heavily as she felt her orgasm building deep within. A few more thrusts sent her over the edge and Quinn followed quickly behind. 

She collapsed on top of him, both of them breathing heavily. 

“I love you.” She panted and she heard him breathe a laugh.  


“I love you too.” 

Carrie slowly rolled of off him and curled up next to him and they fell asleep holding each other. 

¨¨¨¨¨

“I need to go in to town. We need to fill up on groceries.” Quinn told her while they were having breakfast the next morning. 

Carrie felt a knot in her stomach and she swallowed hard as she looked down on the bowl of yoghurt in front of her, and nodded slightly. He reached over the table and took her hand in his. 

“You could come with me.” He said gently. 

She looked up at him and gave him a sad smile, before shaking her head softly. 

“I´ll be okay.” She said quiet. 

“Are you sure?” 

She took a deep breath and smiled ad him once more, he could see that she was trying to make it look genuine, but he knew it wasn´t.

“Yes.” 

¨¨¨¨¨

Thirty minutes later she was alone in the cabin. She had started feeling the panic taking over her body as she saw his car drive away. But after a few deep breaths, she had slowly started to calm herself down to a certain degree. 

She walked around the empty cabin, for the first time really looking around and exploring the place. Just like Quinn´s previous apartments it held nothing of personal value. Everything in the cabin was there to fill a purpose, because it was needed, not because it was something he wanted, something he liked. 

She knew that Maggie had packed a bag with some of her things that Quinn had brought to the cabin, but Carrie hadn’t had the energy to unpack it. She went into the bedroom and pulled it out from the back of the closet. She undid the zipper and looking up at her was a picture of herself and Frannie. 

She felt how tears started to form in her eyes as she looked at the picture. The picture was taken before all hell broke loose, before she lost Quinn, Frannie and herself. She took out the picture from the bag, laid down on the bed and held it pressed to her chest as she cried silently. 

¨¨¨¨¨

When Quinn stepped into the cabin almost 2 hours later, it was dead quiet. He dropped the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and listen for any sort of sound to indicate to him where Carrie was. But there was nothing. 

“Carrie?” 

No response. His heart started to beat faster with every second that passed. He found her asleep in the bed, clutching on to a picture of Frannie and traces of tears on her face. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and as he did she stirred awake. 

“Hey.” He said as he reached out towards her and gently brushed a tear from her face. 

“You okay?” He asked her, as she sat up with her back against the headboard. She gave a barely noticeable nod in return. He reached out towards her and pulled her into a tight embrace, her face resting on his chest. She took a deep breath inhaling the scent of him as she wrapped her arms around his waist. 

“I think I need to see her.” She whispered against his shirt.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language :) Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
